Sir James Jeans postulated in the 1930s that <<God was a mathematician!>>.  A more commonly held view of the same general kind is that <<Physical reality is ultimately  mathematical!>>. Among ordinary intelligent people though such comments are now —nearly a hundred years later— less widely heard. But within the physics and maths ex-elites they seem to retain some of their credibility — how much of this is blind inertia is difficult to assess.  Among the gurus of Silicon Valley —paradoxically— the main body seem to blindly assume that the human psyche is essentially a mathematic bio-structure. The “paradoxicality” of this is that salespeople based of Silicon Valley have been claiming that <<Computing has nothing to do with maths>> for more than sixty years.  In addition,  the way that the computer gurus talk about their science gives little credit to the mathematic-like thinking involved. They typically make it appear that the success of today’s IT is mainly down to clever electronics.

Actually, addressed in an unbiased, impartial, rational way, the notion that physical reality is mathematical is quite unconvincing. The thought-line which has seemed to support it has been the constant inclusion of mathematic concepts in new insights in physics and cosmology.

The real question, though, is not whether some mathematic concepts have been involved in physics and cosmology —of course they have, ever since the Golden Age of Greece— but whether this mathematic involvement is at the heart of the matter.

And if we pose the question in this way, the answer is clearly that physical reality is a long, long way away from the infinitely passive, timeless, spaceless objects of mathematics. The objects of mathematics themselves cannot be the ultimate constituents of physical matter… precisely because physical objects are obviously NOT “passive, timeless and spaceless”.

In fact the question now begins to question itself…  leaving us wondering whether anything in physical reality ever lasts for ever.  There is a well-known problem here: that someone would have to defy their human mortality and live to eternity to verify that this happened.

If we focus onto the plant and animal aspects of physical reality, the likelihood that mathematics plays a central role looks even more problematic. There is a characteristic elan vitale about living things which often grow awesomely, and which can seem unstoppable.

So if we approach the question: <<What is physical reality driven-by?>> with an open mind, the most secure conclusion must be that it is not mathematics.

But anti-mathematics has now been discovered!  So it immediately takes-on the role of looking like a much more convincing outline account of physical reality.

We should be celebrating… that a new, coherent, logically rational way of conceptualising us-and-the-universe now exists.  It is a self-justifying system.  You can read all about this new red-hot philosophy online: see below.

 PS:  The P E R Group’s new BULLETIN can be found on-line at: PERtinence.co.uk/pertinence-news-1/

 YOU CAN COMMENT on themes on this website: email your thoughts to per4group@gmail.com  CHRISTOPHER ORMELL around 1^st August 2025  chrisormell@aol.com